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Ramesh Ponnuru

The myth of fingerprints

I’m receptive to arguments that presuppose that a lot of voters pay minimal attention to politics, and I’m not tied to the proposition that Plan B was the obviously right play. Still: Are there really a lot of voters who do not know that Republicans oppose tax increases on the rich? If Republicans vote for a bill that by its silence on upper-income tax rates allows them to rise, will voters really not know that they did only because Republicans were powerless to stop it? It seems hard to credit. If taxing job creators causes economic calamity, would Obama and the Democrats really be able to get a lot of mileage out of saying that Republicans supported it? I’m skeptical.

That some Republicans are willing to see higher taxes for the sake of anti-tax purity is topsy-turvy enough. Adding to the vertigo: The Republicans (inside and outside the House) who fret about blurring the party’s definition are the ones who are doing most to blur it. They are the ones who are, in most cases, accusing Republican leaders of seeking to raise taxes when they are actually trying to cut taxes as much as they think possible — cut them, that is, from the levels the law already has in place for 2013. They’re the ones who are accusing most House Republicans of “caving” to the Democrats, even as some of them prefer that the Democrats get their way entirely. That’s where the convoluted politics of this moment have led us.

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They’re the ones who are accusing most House Republicans of “caving” to the Democrats, even as some of them prefer that the Democrats get their way entirely. That’s where the convoluted politics of this moment have led us.

Yep. Right now the meme is “Conservative Republicans raised taxes on the middle class rather than see the rich taxed more.”

That is what the result of the Plan B thing was, basically. Republicans have decided to raise taxes on everyone and eliminate the mortgage tax deduction, health care deduction, child care deduction, practically ALL deductions for everyone making over $40K/year because everyone making that much will now be subject to the alternative minimum tax. The “conservative” house Republicans (and I put that in quotes because they seem to be acting as crypto-Democrats handing the liberals victory after victory) have now managed to raise taxes on everyone under the guise of not wanting to raise taxes. It’s just nuts.

The Republican congress is in a really bad spot and so they needed to be really, really smart to avoid being crushed. That meant admitting two key facts: 1) Obama is not negotiating in good faith and so the leadership shouldn’t act as if he is and 2) it is impossible to both cut taxes and cut spending right now and so conservatives have got to play the long game which means some tactical compromises are necessary.

Boehner should not have negotiated directly with Obama, he should have simply followed the normal process of passing his own bill and then waiting for the Senate to pass their own version with the two bills being reconciled. This would have forced the Dems to act which they absolutely do not want to do. The Dems know that anything they pass will be terrible (which is why they have avoided passing any budgets) and so they would rather have the White House run the House Repubs through the meat grinder and get the Republicans to cave before they themselves do anything at all. Negotiating directly with Obama is as productive as as negotiated with Iran’s mullahs; it is utterly worthless and plays right into their hands. It simply served to back the Republicans into a corner, leaving them to try last second desperate plays like “Plan B”.

This has been a monumental failure on the part of the entire Republican House and it portends very bad things over the next two years.

When they pass their own bill, it puts the ball in the hands of Harry Reid which is a really bad thing for Dems. But when they negotiate directly with Obama, it allows the White House, Senate and Media to all gang up to crush the Republicans.

the liberal/moderate GOPe agreed to the fiscal cliff last year. It was going to happen they made it automatic.

fact:

the liberal GOPe, Obama and the dems want the tax hikes to ocurr.

The fiscal cliff gives the liberals in the GOPe, Obama and the dems everything they want. therefore they have no reason to come up with a “plan to stop it from happening”

fact the voters will punish those responsible for tax increases.

So of course they have to find a group to blame. Plan B was about assigning blame and the Liberal SPeaker and Obama decided to blame “conservatives/ Tea party members.

the blame game was set in motion last month by the speaker when he publicly removed key tea party members from their posts. Setting the stage for the GOPe leadership to cry “revenge” when their “efforts” to find a “compromise” fell through. there was no effort to find a compromise. It was all a carefuilly laid plan to try to blame conservatives for the tax hikes.

the tax hikes were signed by Reid, Obama and Cryin John last year. the fiscal cliff is the agreement they made then. Nothing has changed since then accept nobody wants to change the agreement they all agreed too. Now they are just trying to place blame.

The narrative is the narrative is the narrative. It really doesn’t matter what the Republicans do, the media will make them into plutocrat-smooching grandma-kicking bad guys, and that’s that. No sense roughing up our guys for that.